Tollund_Man4
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User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Ireland
Another fire at a building (believed to be) earmarked for asylum accomodation. A vacant pub in Dublin which was also the site of anti-migrant protests last year was set alight during the night, but the government and homeless charities are saying that it was ultimately going to be used for homeless families and not asylum seeker accomodation.
An angry crowd of masked men was out at a building in Finglas, Dublin last night so I guess that's the next probable target.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
As far as the extra police equipment goes I think the general street crime problem in Dublin deserves a mention. Yes the rioters are “far-right” according to the government and they’re seizing the opportunity to push hate speech legislation, but they’re also the Dublin scumbags that have been embarrassing the government in the past year by, for example, earning Ireland an American embassy travel warning.
By all accounts Dublin should be more seriously policed and the type of authoritarianism that would remove ‘junkie’ as the first thought that enters non-Dubliner’s minds when visiting (I mean Irish people here, foreigners I’ve talked to seem to be used to this type of thing in their own cities) would ordinarily be welcomed by all sides of the political spectrum.
It’s just a shame that something is only done when the disorder takes on a political dimension, it makes me think that street crime isn’t the main thing they’re trying to tackle.
I find a lot of the pro/anti car arguments get bogged down in the fact that there aren’t many Americans who have lived in Europe and vice versa, for example practical confusions about how stock resupply works on pedestrianised streets or why Americans actually want to be somewhat isolated from the dangerous inner cities (I’ve seen this problem with Irish anti-car advocates too when they oppose pro-car compromises that are normal in very walkable European cities).
Personally I find these conversations very interesting, but you can’t really get anywhere when a good chunk of either side of the debate hasn’t experienced the alternative.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
That is, killing a cow and eating it may involve less animal death compared to eating bread.
This is a big ‘may’, I’m not sure how you can get to a confident ‘therefore’ without settling it.
I also think (2) is an easy bullet for a vegan to bite if you aren’t a utilitarian (though the utilitarian question remains unsettled). If you think killing animals is wrong full stop then arguments about how trying to avoid killing animals can backfire will sound the same as a pro-lifer hearing about how legalising abortion will lead to fewer murdered babies (this was an argument I heard a lot of during the build up to the Irish abortion referendum).
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Jeffrey the Librarian does a lot of interesting stuff on the early United States/Thirteen Colonies.
I also really liked Epic History TV’s hour long episodes on Napoleon’s campaigns.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
The Ukrainian migrants generated no such disruption because they were majority women and children.
I’m open to being corrected, but barring the Roma weren't people from Eastern European EU countries also able to migrate en masse without causing much disruption? A part of this might be just that Eastern Europeans don’t have insurmountable cultural differences with Western Europeans.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Western online feminists love to loudly complain about as a nightmarish dystopia to be avoided, namely a society plagued by enormous numbers of single, sexless and, one can imagine, bitter and traumatized, violent young men
Bitter, traumatised and violent, yes they treat that as a huge problem, but single and sexless? I’m not sure feminism explicitly worries about this, single and sexless men are to be dealt with on an individual level as inconvenient complainers who are to be ignored or shamed - feminism only deals with these men insofar as their situation (whether self-inflicted or not) causes them to step out of line. I don’t think women in general have this attitude but it’s the sense I’ve gotten from any explicitly feminist space I’ve seen.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Ireland
Yet another hotel earmarked for housing asylum seekers has burned down during the night. The asylum seekers were due to move in on Thursday, protesters blockaded the entrance of the hotel on Saturday and it was set alight that same night. It's unclear whether the local protesters were involved in starting the fire, the hotel is very isolated so once the protest made the news pretty much anyone could drive up during the night and get away with it.
Rosscahill is a 7 minute drive from Oughterard, a town that gained some notoriety back in 2019 after an Irish Times article suggested that the town meeting on and protests over a proposed 250 person direct provision centre (asylum seeker accomodation) in a town of 1300 was hijacked by the far-right. The protest and arson took place very quickly but it makes sense if it didn't take long for people to act given that this type of thing was already rejected by the local community 4 years ago.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
What makes the crime a terroristic threat rather than just a death threat?
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
One of the plot points of City of God is that there’s a gang member who actually knows how to shoot, might be worth a watch.
I find it hard to believe that their true motives were stuff like decreasing regional tax-kickups to the Holy Roman Emperor.
I don't know much about the continental side but in Ireland a lot of sectarian mob violence in the 17th and 18th centuries can be explained by fear of another Jacobite rebellion or unwanted economic competition from Catholics:
The winter of 1795–6, immediately following the formation of the Orange Order, saw Protestants drive around 7,000 Catholics out of County Armagh. In a sign that tension over the linen trade was still a burning issue, 'Wreckers' continued the Peep o' Day Boys strategy of smashing looms and tearing webs in Catholic homes to eliminate competition. This resulted in a reduction in the hotly competitive linen trade which had been in a brief slump. A consequence of this scattering of highly-political Catholics, however, was a spread of Defenderism throughout Ireland.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Right now, there's one park in Europe and two in the US, you could build one in Texas, one in Italy and one in Turkey and all of them would be full.
Disney has the name recognition but there is some competition. Portaventura in Spain was just as good as Eurodisney Paris when I visited as a kid, and Gardaland in Italy is apparently also a world class theme park.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Hume's Enquiries concerning Human Understanding to brush up on a book I've had a lot of second-hand exposure to but never actually read, and Costin Alamariu's Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
I would think the "fuck condoms" attitude is only possible in places where most of the women are on birth control.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Anyone got got recommendations for podcasts/Youtube channels focused on history or philosophy? I listen at work where my hands are kept busy so anything longform or a good playlist of shorter stuff would be good to minimise having to pull my phone out.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
I haven’t played Victoria 3 but my experience with other Paradox games is that you have to read a few guides and ask questions on the related subreddits to actually understand how to play. You could be 100 hours in and still not be certain about the workings of certain mechanics.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Can you imagine 21st century Americans behaving like the Palestinians if the Chinese decided to occupy their nation? I can’t.
It's an interesting what if. Neither the Americans nor the English have the experience of living under a foreign occupation, at least not since William the Conquerer. I hear this pointed out a lot to explain why American and English perspectives on ex-colonial nations seem so out of touch.
While they were never under a long-term foreign occupation I think the Ulster Scots would be very likely to hold to that type of irrational faith that is necessary for nation to survive under a foreign government. If Ireland ever unifies I don't expect them to stop being more British than the British themselves, and if America ever loses territory I don't expect their counterparts over there to give up either.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Keith Woods is definitely much bigger online than he is in Ireland, but then again I’m analysing things on the assumption that I’m an outlier in how online I am in an age when every young lad in the pub is talking about Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson so maybe the conversion rate of internet fame to real world influence has gone up.
As for my own position I think a dose of populism is needed. Irish politics seems to be going along with the trends of the Anglo world regardless of the opinions of the people living there, someone more tied up with the interest of farmers or local communities and less worried about their standing in international elite circles would be ideal. The Healy Rae family are clownish but a more articulate version of them might actually change some things.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
It's an interesting question, I have to get off my computer soon so these will be scattered points but I might write a long post on the situation in a few days and see if the other Irish posters here agree. The short answer is I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Woods and the rest of the Irish far-right have been making a hell of an effort to link their brand of nationalism to Irish republicanism - the only cause with a real populist spark - but it's an uphill battle and they've got the much more organised, motivated (and as they hate me pointing out, better armed) republicans up north to contend with. To be fair the attempt has gotten its own debunking article from the national broadcaster so it's definitely gotten people's attention. Woods has his own unique downsides too, as much as the Israeli government may dispute this actual anti-semitism is not a good look, there are very few Jews in Ireland in the first place and getting angry about them makes you sound like you'd be more at home in some other country that cares about this stuff. His and the Irish far-right's internet savviness is very helpful when it comes to embarrassing the government, but because the internet is global you risk associating yourself with based British nationalists. Tommy Robinson has shown up to a few protests in Dublin and this fact has been jumped on immediately to discredit the movement whenever it has happened, I've seen a few Irish Twitter right-wingers fiercely condemning each other over this otherwise natural alliance.
The National Party is making the effort to knock on doors and win some votes the traditional way but it has had basically zero success. I won't write them off completely though as the few members I know are extremely motivated and I expect that will hold for their next batch of recruits.
The peaceful protests against and arson attacks on migrant housing seem to be organic, the far-right do show up to these town hall meetings and do share inciting material online, and leftists take this as evidence that this is all the result of conspiracies, but they haven't been able to actually get themselves into a leadership position. There was a bit of a controversy over one of these guys showing up to a small town called Oughterard a few years back while the locals were objecting to migrant accomodation. Oughterard is no more far-right than it was a few years ago, the energy evaporated once the matter was settled.
All of this being said: (i) I have been repeatedly surprised by the willingness of random townspeople to protest, and (ii) Irish people are struggling economically and the country is changing rapidly so old expectations may not hold.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
Not sure if there's no sound or it's just my computer but here's a black guy with his hands completely full of loot drawing strange looks from the rioters: https://twitter.com/wayotworld/status/1727851752697831824
There's videos of Irish people looting too so I wouldn't say it was whites vs migrants as much as political rioters (who are basically all white) vs looters.
The polls and studies I've seen show that the Irish tend to generally be pro-immigration, but it's obviously hard to get a sense of the country through a poll.
This is true, and Irish people aren't the type to cause a scene either way. Working class Dubliners are quite different though, and actual organised right wingers like the National Party are extremely loud for their size (I doubt they made up a large portion of the rioters but probably a decent portion of the guys livestreaming).
Seeing rumours that the Algerian guy was homeless and literally brain damaged. He was also in court last year for possession of a knife and criminal damage.
Seems like a good candidate for a scissor statement (not sure how to word this, a scissor case?), is the guy the most blameless a person can be in this situation and the tragedy a result of poor homeless and healthcare services or should he have been deported the moment he ended up in court? Technically the latter couldn’t happen because he was a citizen but that just pushes back the question to whether we should be more careful in handing out citizenship.
Strangely enough the standard law & order viewpoint that would have prevented this tragedy (a mentally ill guy waving knives around should probably be in jail if no other institution is available) is being touted by the left and centre while the (far) right are the ones defending rioters. To be fair to the right wingers there are plenty of videos of people confronting non-Irish looters during the riot, but their name is going to be tarred by association with looters whether they like it or not. The Irish left’s idea of law & order isn’t great for free speech either.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
I'm surprised at this. I haven't heard much bad said about the Brazilians myself but I'm not from Dublin so maybe it's different there. It's a different demographic than the average Brazilian in Ireland but the high population of Brazilians in Gort is considered more of a curiosity than a reason to avoid it.
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
I’m not a Dublin native but I think it would be very strange if turned out that the rioters weren’t mostly Irish.
There are lots of videos and newspaper articles about the absolutely wild behaviour of Dublin youth over the years, they’re definitely capable of burning down trams and stealing buses (not so different from Belfast youth in that regard though riots are still very rare in Dublin).
Tollund_Man4
1yr ago
The Dublin youngfella can be very destructive when given the opportunity.
I'm not sure actually. The definition of 'homelessness' is fairly expansive in Ireland. These numbers are from the start of last year:Just under 30% of homeless are children, around half are single adults, 61% of them are Irish and only 17% were from outside the European Economic Area. There's nearly 12,000 people in emergency accomodation being counted as homeless while the rough sleeper count in Dublin is at something like 150.
They probably weren't going to be majority non-European single men, maybe they'd be Roma or Irish gypsies, but it seems like normal but poor Irish families is a very plausible scenario too. I'll have to look into whether homeless families in particular is an actual category for who gets allowed into these types of places or whether homeless families are just the most sympathetic group to bring up in the news.
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